Tag: education

Every year OIST hosts the Science Challenge, which is organized by the Graduate School as an opportunity for Japanese undergraduate students to explore scientific career options. Over the course of a few days the students participate in a number of activities that focus on the diversity of scientific paths and introduce ways to develop the international communication skills necessary for success.

The Biodiversity and Biocomplexity Unit organized a hands-on activity for the 2018 science challenge. Twelve students signed up, making the “Measuring Biodiversity” activity the most popular at OIST for the second year in a row. The goal of the activity was to quantify the diversity of insects in a vial given a short period of time and no taxonomic expertise. This year’s students were really enthusiastic about using their observations to quantify biodiversity, and had some great ideas about how to do this at scale in the future.

On Saturday, July 29th, many collaborators of the OKEON Churamori Project along with the general public gathered at OIST to attend the OKEON Churamori Project Symposium 2017. This event was the project’s first symposium and it was a great success, with over 170 attendees, interesting and informative talks, a panel discussion, and a post-symposium gathering that included hands-on exhibitions and a poster session where participants were able to exchange ideas.

OIST Science Challenge 2017 was put together by the Graduate School over five days (3/6-3/10) to allow Japanese undergraduate students to explore their careers as scientists and researchers. The students were involved in hands-on activities set up by different labs in order to learn about the research conducted at OIST as well as learn experimental and research methods.

Arilab hosted a an activity based around measuring biodiversity. Our “measuring biodiversity” activity is the most popular one this year, with 12 students signing up. The goal of the activity is for students to apply concepts of biodiversity to a tangible challenge: designing a one-hour project to quantify the diversity of insects in a petri dish. After this activity, students should critique their success and use this experience to design future project ideas. The material used in this activity is provided by the OKEON Churamori Project.

On Sunday, November 27th, guests from all parts of Okinawa gathered at OIST to attend the Open Campus Science Festival. This event was OIST’s biggest Open Campus to date, with over 5200 attendees, 250 volunteers, 20 food vendors and 35 booths featuring hands-on science activities.

The arilab booth attracted many visitors. Per usual, the Wonder of Ants is an essential part of the exhibition: there were ant specimens displayed, microscopes set up that allowed visitors to look at macroscopic ants, 3D-printed ants, 3D ants and ant structure that can be visualized by wearing 3D glasses, and an educational video about ants.

On top of that, the OKEON project had its own area, with various posters set up about the project, a SLAM trap and a camera trap set up as demonstrations, a video created by Nick that documents various sounds recorded from acoustic traps at OKEON sites, and finally the famous Okinawan ant specialist Takamine san was also present to educate people about ants.

The Economo unit is once again setting up a booth at the OIST Science Festa 2016 as part of the Open Campus event. “The Wonder of Ants”, a section of the booth that has always been popular, is also being exhibited but with more content than before. Moreover, this year the OKEON Churamori project will also set up its own section, with various collaborators gathering at the event, including teachers and students from Hentona and Yomitan high schools; Takamine san, the famous ant scholar who studied Okinawa ants for over 40 years; finally, Tone san, the curator of the Okinawa city museum and a speaker at the joint talk event that was recently held at the same museum.

At the Science Cafe, Yoshimura san and Tone san will be collaborating once again. Let’s talk about what we can do individually to preserve the environment of Okinawa.

After the Science Cafe, the teachers and students from Hentona high school will present their research results on ants collected from their school, which is surrounded by the nature of Yanbaru.

The Wonder of Ants & The OKEON Churamori Project
Did you know that there are over 12000 described species of ants? Though ants are ubiquitous, they are infact very interesting creatures and fascinate not only the general public but also researchers. Similar to humans, they create their own society with each individual playing a role to accomplish tasks. Let’s experience together the profound world of ants.
We will display the efforts and the results of our environmental monitoring network, the OKEON Churamori Project.